2003 - Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones
I played this last year thanks to Silly Little Tech Toys. I'll start by saying that I only got into Fire Emblem with Awakening and so going back and playing this was a hell of a lot of fun. Playing this and the one that came before it on the GBA (localized in English as just Fire Emblem), it lowkey makes me dislike everything that comes after it.
This is very much a sort of nostalgia thing, but the sprites in these games were incredible. And some of the units were much more interesting. Critical hits, in particular were distinguished not by the game slowing down and doing a ton of damage, but by a special animation. There was some of this in the more recent entries, but when I tell you that they don't hold a candle, I'm overselling the new ones.
Similarly, some units become more boring in the newer games because representing the older versions of them with higher graphic fidelity would probably make them seem a li'l weird. I think Awakening was probably the last time they could've gotten away with it because of the li'l hoofy-style feet they have in that game. But like, Generals as a unit type are kinda boring attackers in these games. But in Shining Stones, they aren't just a big dude with a spear, they're massive tanks that fire the spear like a missile and pull it back via a giant chain! That's so fucking cool!
Where the game was frustrating for me was you have a TOTAL of five links per character. So, you can have five bonding scenes for each character. So, you can bond superficially with five different characters OR you can have varying levels of bonds with 2-4. It's a little bit frustrating just because it means you may inadvertently lock yourself out of the full scope of a pairing's potential, but it also means you have to be much more careful about that kind of planning. For example, there are two characters you can get who are members of a mercenary company together. One is the boss, the other is incredibly beautiful and skilled, but socially distant and even a little weird (I'd read her autistic, but that's just me). Over their whole relationship, she endeavors to be more socially aware and approachable at his request, which leads to a fairly cute romance between the two. It's sweet. There's another where you get two characters who are father and son and so if they work together enough, you can have some sweet bonding moments there. ~~or you miss it cause you only ever use one of them oops.
I liked this game a lot. Checking my Miyoo, my first and currently still favorite silly little tech toy, I've got nearly 50 hours in it, which is a lot for me these days! ...okaythat'sallbye